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Science and Society Science is not static; it changes over time, reflecting shifts in the larger societies in which it is embedded. Societies have changed over time, and consequently, so has science

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Science in First half of the 20 th century When the world was enmeshed in war, governments made funds available for scientists to pursue research with wartime applications — and so science progressed in that direction, unlocking the mysteries of nuclear energy.

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Science in Second half of the 20 th century At other times, market forces have led to scientific advances. For example, modern corporations looking for income through medical treatment, drug production, and agriculture, have increasingly devoted resources to biotechnology research, yielding breakthroughs in genomic sequencing and genetic engineering.

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Science Today Modern foundations funded by the financial success of individuals may invest their money in ventures that they deem to be socially responsible, encouraging research on topics like renewable energy technologies.

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Science and our live Science affects us all, every day of the year, from the moment we wake up, all day long, and through the night: Our digital alarm clock, the weather report, the asphalt we drive on, the bus we ride in, our decision to eat a baked potato instead of fries, our cell phone, the antibiotics that treat our sore throat, the clean water that comes from our faucet, and the light that we turn off at the end of the day have all been brought to you courtesy of science.

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Science and Modernity The modern world would not be modern at all without the understandings and technology enabled by science. To make it clear how deeply science is interwoven with our lives, just try imagining a day without scientific progress.

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Just for starters, without modern science, there would be: no way to use electricity. From Ben Franklin's studies of static and lightning in the 1700s, to Alessandro Volta's first battery, to the key discovery of the relationship between electricity and magnetism, science has steadily built up our understanding of electricity, which today carries our voices over telephone lines, brings entertainment to our televisions, and keeps the lights on.

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No Plastic The first completely synthetic plastic was made by a chemist in the early 1900s, and since then, chemistry has developed a wide variety of plastics suited for all sorts of jobs, from blocking bullets to making slicker dental floss.

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No Modern Agriculture Science has transformed the way we eat today. In the 1940s, biologists began developing high-yield varieties of corn, wheat, and rice, which, when paired with new fertilizers and pesticides developed by chemists, dramatically increased the amount of food that could be harvested from a single field, ushering in the Green Revolution. These science-based technologies triggered striking changes in agriculture, massively increasing the amount of food available to feed the world and simultaneously transforming the economic structure of agricultural practices.

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No Modern Medicine In the late 1700s, Edward Jenner first convincingly showed that vaccination worked. In the 1800s, scientists and doctors established the theory that many diseases are caused by germs. And in the 1920s, a biologist discovered the first antibiotic. From the eradication of smallpox, to the prevention of nutritional deficiencies, to successful treatments for once deadly infections, the impact of modern medicine on global health has been powerful. In fact, without science, many people alive today would have instead died of diseases that are now easily treated.

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Science and Quality of Live Scientific knowledge can improve the quality of life at many different levels — from the routine workings of our everyday lives to global issues. Science informs public policy and personal decisions on energy, conservation, agriculture, health, transportation, communication, defense, economics, leisure, and exploration. It's almost impossible to overstate how many aspects of modern life are impacted by scientific knowledge. Here we'll discuss just a few of these examples.

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The impact of science and technology science builds knowledge about the world, but that people decide how that knowledge should be used For example, science helped us understand that much of an atom's mass is in its dense nucleus, which stores enormous amounts of energy that can be released by breaking up the nucleus. That knowledge itself is neutral, but people have chosen to apply it in many different ways.

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Knowledge of the atomic nucleus has been many applied in many differences way

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Nuclear and Energy Our understanding of this basic atomic structure has been used as the basis of nuclear power plants, which themselves have many societal benefits (e.g., nuclear power does not rely on non-renewable, polluting fossil fuels) and costs (e.g., nuclear power produces radioactive waste, which must be carefully stored for long periods of time).

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Nuclear and Medicine. That understanding has also been used in many modern medical applications (e.g., in radiation therapy for cancer and in medical imaging, which can trace the damage caused by a heart attack or Alzheimer's disease).

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Nuclear and Defense During World War II, that knowledge also clued scientists and politicians in to the fact that atomic energy could be used to make weapons. Once a political decision was made to pursue atomic weapons, scientists worked to develop other scientific knowledge that would enable this technology to be built.